A blog from the South Dakota Library Association's representative to the American Library Association

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Resolution Concerning Accessibility of ALA Conferences and Meetings for People with Disabilities

ALA conferences are great places to connect with other librarians from around the country and the world. For those with disabilities; however, ALA conferences can be troublesome. Stories abound about sessions that are blocks or miles apart without enough transportation, especially transportation for those in wheelchairs or other mobile devices. Having spent 5 weeks on a knee walker myself almost two years ago, I can't imagine having to negotiate ALA in such a manner. There was even a story about a speaker at a previous conference who indicated they needed a podium and mike that was wheelchair accessible and got to their speaking venue to discover several steps (and no ramp) up to the speakers' platform and no accommodations had been made. ALA councilors discussed this issue and the best way for council to get some action taken through several meetings. We finally came up with a resolution that establishes a Conference Accessibility Task Force with several goals the task force needs to accomplish. This is a rather important resolution so I will include more information in this post that I have in the others.